In 2015, the Liberals campaigned on ending the then-five-year ban altogether. That meant, rather than outright refusing donations from men who had sex with men, or the “MSM” community as some have coined it, donations would be accepted only if the donor had not been sexually active for five years.
During that scandal, the Canadian Red Cross - which was the predecessor to Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec - failed to properly test and screen donors, resulting in thousands of Canadians being exposed to HIV through contaminated blood products.ĭuring the nearly three decades since, the policy has been reduced, first in 2013 seeing the lifetime ban knocked down to a five-year deferral period. The policy started in 1992 as an outright lifetime ban following the tainted blood scandal that played out between the 1980s and 1990s and saw thousands of Canadians infected with HIV after receiving donor blood. In Canada, both Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec have policies in place prohibiting gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, as well as certain trans folks who have sex with men from donating blood unless they have been abstinent for three months. So, how close is the policy to actually changing? And what has to happen before the blood ban comes to an end? Opposition parties have begun increasing the political pressure to see the Liberals do more to make good on their two-time election commitment, as LGBTQ2S+ advocates and those who are prohibited from donating continue to voice their frustration, saying the policy is discriminatory and not based in science.
It’s nearly a year later and the policy remains unchanged, with the government now arguing in federal court, that while they want to see the blood ban eliminated, it’s not within their powers to unilaterally change the policy. Years after first promising to do so, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during Pride month last June that he hoped to “very soon” announce the elimination of the blood donation ban for gay men as well as some other folks in the LGBTQ2S+ community.